Wenchao (Michelle) Jin

Wenchao joined the IFS in 2010 as a Research Economist in the skills and education sector. She has investigated recent reforms to the Higher Education funding regime, the effects of the National Minimum Wage on young people and on firms, and the impact of Universal Credit. Her current research interests are in the labour market and labour productivity since the great recession.

Since the early-1990s the UK experienced an unprecedented increase in university graduates, but at the same time the age profile of the graduate premium remained largely unchanged across cohorts. This paper establishes the facts using a detailed analysis of micro-data on wage and employment ...

Reports and comment

The UK higher education sector has expanded remarkably over the past three decades. In 1993, 13% of 25- to 29-year-olds had first degrees or higher degrees. By 2015, this had roughly tripled to 41%. Naturally, one may wonder whether the big expansion has reduced the economic returns to having a ...

This evaluation compares the education outcomes of Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) participants (collected by SMF via participant questionnaires) with outcomes for a group of pupils with similar observable characteristics (such as performance at secondary school and neighbourhood context), ...